by Larry Parr
September 1, 2002
5.1 Bobby's Blitz
Chess
There is a conventional wisdom about Bobby Fischer’s development
as a blitz player. My view is that this common understanding does
not make sense. Not even prima facie sense.
In April 1970, Bobby scored 19 - 3 (+17
-1 =4) to win the unofficial “Speed Chess Championship of
the World,” which was held in Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia. Mikhail
Tal (or a Soviet editor in Tal’s name) expressed the common
understanding of Fischer as a speed player, “I don’t
know what Petrosian, Korchnoi, Bronstein, and Smyslov counted on
before the start of the tournament, but I expected them to be the
most probable rivals for the top prizes. Fischer had until recently
played fast chess none too strongly. Now much has changed: he is
fine at fast chess. His playing is of the same kind as in tournament
games: everything is simple, follows a single pattern, logical,
and without any spectacular effects. He makes his moves quickly
and practically without errors. Throughout the tournament I think
he did not lose a whole set of pieces in this way. Fischer’s
result is very, very impressive.”
Tal concluded his comments on the blitz
championship with the much less quoted, yet significant statement,
“We had known, of course, that Fischer is one of the strongest
chessplayers in the world. He can defeat Petrosyan, Korchnoi, Spassky,
and Larsen. Just as they can defeat him.”
The Herceg Novi blitz event was the
speed tournament of the 20th century. It had four world champions
competing, and Bobby not only finished 4 ½ points ahead of
Tal in second place, he also obliterated the Soviet contingent,
8 ½ - 1 ½, whitewashing Tal, Tigran Petrosian and
Vasily Smyslov, six-zip; breaking even with Viktor Korchnoi; and
defeating David Bronstein with a win and draw. According to one
report, Fischer spent no more than 2 ½ minutes on any game,
thereby also giving, in effect, heavy speed odds to powerful opponents.
So, while Tal – or a Soviet editor rewriting Tal – is
technically correct that the greats could beat Fischer, it is more
apt to say that he could beat them far, far more often.
Here is the ever-so-telling tournament table:
Herceg Novi Blitz Tournament (5-Minute
Chess)
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
Total |
1. Fischer |
x |
2 |
1 |
2 |
1½ |
1½ |
2 |
2 |
1½ |
1½ |
2 |
2 |
19 |
2. Tal |
0 |
x |
2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
1½ |
½ |
2 |
1½ |
2 |
2 |
14½ |
3. Korchnoi |
1 |
0 |
x |
½ |
0 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1½ |
2 |
2 |
14 |
4. Petrosian |
0 |
1 |
1½ |
x |
1 |
1 |
1½ |
1 |
1 |
1½ |
2 |
2 |
13½ |
5. Bronstein |
½ |
2 |
2 |
1 |
x |
½ |
½ |
1 |
½ |
1½ |
1½ |
2 |
13 |
6. Hort |
½ |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1½ |
x |
1 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
12 |
7. Matulovic |
0 |
½ |
0 |
½ |
1½ |
1 |
x |
½ |
2 |
2 |
1½ |
1 |
10½ |
8. Smyslov |
0 |
1½ |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1½ |
x |
½ |
1 |
1 |
2 |
9½ |
9. Reshevsky |
½ |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1½ |
0 |
0 |
1½ |
x |
½ |
1½ |
1 |
8½ |
10. Uhlmann |
½ |
½ |
½ |
½ |
½ |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1½ |
x |
0 |
2 |
8 |
11. Ivkov |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
½ |
1 |
½ |
1 |
½ |
2 |
x |
2 |
7½ |
12. Ostojic |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
x |
2 |
EXPLAINING AWAY BOBBY’S DOMINANCE
The problem with Tal’s account of the
Herceg Novi tournament is that it offers no explanation for Fischer’s
dominance. We are told that “until recently” Fischer
“played fast chess none too strongly” but that now “he
is fine at fast chess,” an understatement if ever there was
one. The conventional wisdom is, then, that there appeared sudden,
inexplicable strength where hitherto there had been relative weakness.
On the Internet, inveterate Fischer haters
typically argue that Bobby had a good day in Herceg Novi, and the
others had a bad day. If – well, if – Bobby had lost
a lost position in the first round against Tal, then maybe the final
result would have been substantially different. Maybe Bobby would
have tanked the tournament. Maybe the next time around Bobby might
not prove so dominant. Maybe .... and so on.
Fischer’s chess career has been more
minutely dissected than that of any other player, yet we know surprisingly
little about his speed playing. True, we know that he won the U.S.
Junior Speed Championship in 1957, and we have this reliable testimony
of Fischer’s chess teacher Jack Collins:
How strong was Bobby? I remember the
1966-67 New Year’s Eve party at our home. At the time Bobby
was competing in and winning his final U. S. Championship. Several
grandmasters were present, and there was plenty of eating and
drinking. By 2 a. m. Bobby wanted to play some chess, and he had
in mind a certain strong international master. But Bobby had drunk
quite a bit more than his opponent, and he insisted on playing
blindfold blitz chess while the opponent had sight of the board.
Still, he won effortlessly.
There are also stories from old Fischer
friends about mighty blitz kriegs at the Manhattan Chess Club during
the 1950s, and Fischer biographer Frank Brady recalls Bobby giving
the GM-strength William Addison pawn and move, while playing him
blindfold in blitz. Addison barely broke even! And then there is
Bobby’s preposterous score of 21 ½ - ½ in a
strong speed tournament held at the Manhattan Chess Club in August
1971.
All told, Bobby scored 40 ½ - 3 ½
or 92 percent in two major blitz tournaments – Herceg Novi
and the Manhattan tournament – against players ranging from
strong masters to world champions. Bobby was treating this elite
as masters treat class-rated players in simultaneous exhibitions.
What Hans Kmoch said about Fischer’s 11 - 0 sweep in the 1963-64
U. S. Championship – he congratulated second place GM Larry
Evans for winning the tournament and Fischer for “winning
the exhibition” – could now be said about Fischer’s
treatment of world champions and candidates for the world championship.
Let us ponder that titillating total again
– 40 ½ - 3 ½ or +38 -1 =5. This tally was not
a chance agglomeration of numbers. Many of the games were so good,
even though Fischer consciously offered roughly five to two odds
in these battles, that Mikhail Tal wrote in a confidential letter
to the U.S.S.R. Chess Federation that “Fischer’s lightning
games are interesting material for studies” in preparation
for Fischer-Spassky I at Reykjavik 1972. He then quoted GM Alexei
Suetin as writing, “Fischer treats every game as if it were
a tournament game, which is why he commits himself totally from
the first move to the last even in a blitz tournament.”
Clearly, the conventional wisdom that Bobby
just got good one year at five minute is ludicrous, if only because
he was obviously always exceedingly strong at blitz chess. Such,
after all, is what one would expect of, arguably, the greatest natural
talent in chess history. Bobby’s only rival in blitz is Jose
Capablanca, along with Paul Morphy one of the other two great natural
geniuses in chess history.
WHENCE THE WISDOM?
If the conventional wisdom makes little sense
and, as we shall see, slyly belittles Fischer’s accomplishments,
then the question is whence derives this wisdom? The answer is that
it comes from Soviet sources. Articles that appeared in leading
Soviet chess journals such as Shakhmaty and 64
were usually regurgitated or summarized in Western chess journals.
To be sure, Bobby’s blitz chess in
1955 was not the same as Bobby’s blitz in 1970. Nor, for that
matter, was Bobby’s blitz in 1960 equal to Bobby’s blitz
in 1970. Larry Evans recalls, “In 1960 I played a marathon
five minute blitz session with Fischer that lasted perhaps three
or four hours. We broke even after about 25 games. In 1970, however,
I was no longer a match for him at this speed.” There is also
a report about the 17-year-old Fischer playing speed chess at the
1960 Leipzig Olympiad, where he dominated the likes of Robert Byrne
and Miguel Najdorf but was reportedly still not quite a match for
Korchnoi and Tal. More on Leipzig later.
SOVIET COVERAGE OF FISCHER’S BLITZ
PLAY
Dmitry Plisetsky and Sergey Voronkov’s
Russians Versus Fischer contains some previously classified
Soviet chess documents relating to Bobby Fischer as well as material
from many articles in Soviet chess magazines. These articles promoted
the myth of Fischer as a relatively weak speed player, who inexplicably
and miraculously got good. It was also in these articles that great
chess men such as Boris Spassky and Tal wrote about Fischer in a
tone that was not their own.
Not their own? Am I saying that words that
appeared under the names of Spassky, Tal and other grandmasters
were invented by others?
After the Piatigorsky Cup in 1966, in which
Fischer and Spassky competed famously, the latter said, “It
was only after my return to Moscow that I learned that the newspaper
Sovietsky Sport had printed an interview with me, in which
it was said: ‘During his game with Spassky in the 17th round
Fischer asked for the removal from the hall of a woman whose knitting
needles, he claimed were disturbing the silence and irritating him.’
.... I must say that I did not see this and, therefore, could not
have said anything of the kind.”
Or there is this quotation, supposedly from
Tal, about Fischer’s behavior during the 1970 U.S.S.R. vs.
The World Match: “Fischer is a child of a different lifestyle
than ours, and all his actions are a result of the upbringing he
received. But on the whole, he’s not a bad lad, of pleasing
appearance, a bit big and slightly awkward, but with a good natured
and very winning smile.” The line about Fischer being “a
child of a different lifestyle” (i.e., capitalism)
appeared often in the Soviet chess press, but from later interviews
with Tal and other Soviet chess personalities, we know that these
belittling and condescending attacks on Fischer came from the pens
of Soviet editors rather than from the mouths of men such as Tal
and Spassky.
One theme in Soviet coverage of Fischer
is that his results were miraculous or, as Sovietsky Sport
could only splutter about Fischer’s candidates’ shutouts,
“A miracle has occurred.” This concept of causation
beyond Fischer’s own powers became an important staple of
Soviet writing on Fischer, which was meant to deny subtly his status
as a unique genius.
“Fischer is too deeply convinced that
he is a genius,” wrote Mark Taimanov in 1960, and statements
with the same tone often appeared in Soviet chess publications.
One of the most egregious was another report by Taimanov (or a Soviet
editor) after Fischer lost to Spassky at Siegen 1970. “Even
some Americans (whose names I am not going to disclose, being a
neutral party) were not too upset by the defeat of their leading
player. ‘It’s time Fischer was shown that after all
he is not the genius he styles himself to be,’ was their comment.”
In the end, however, reality overcame denial. Tal eventually stated
straight out that Fischer was “the greatest genius to have
descended from the chessic sky.”
In 1958 the 15-year-old Fischer visited
Moscow along with his sister. Yuri Averbakh has described how the
U. S. Champion played lightning games at the Central Chess Club,
apparently mopping the board with such young comers as Yevgeny Vasyukov
and Alexander Nikitin. In 1971, directly after the Fischer-Taimanov
match, Bobby would astonish Vasyukov by recalling his games against
him from memory. More on this feat below.
In Moscow in 1958, Bobby wanted to do more
than play the young comers. He wanted to play against the Soviet
world champion and the cream of the imposing Soviet grandmasteriat.
Tigran Petrosian – or a Soviet editor
inventing comments from Petrosian – afterwards claimed, “I
was the person summoned to the Club to ‘cope’ with a
youth who was beating the Moscow masters at lightning chess.”
How well he coped with Fischer remains unclear. Fischer biographer
Frank Brady claims that Bobby won some games from Petrosian, who
had already twice been a candidate for the world title. If the match
were at all close, then Petrosian did not “cope” well
with a 15-year-old.
Indeed, one suspects that Fischer scored
excellently in Moscow. Here is a revealing passage from GM Mark
Taimanov’s memoirs:
[Fischer’s] memory was amazing.
Just one more example. It happened in Vancouver, Canada in 1971.
At the closing of my infamous match against Fischer, Fischer and
I were sitting with fellow grandmasters at a banquet and were
talking peaceably after the preceding storms .... The conversation
revolved around the match until my second, Yevgeny Vasyukov, suddenly
turned to Fischer:
“Bobby, do you remember that
in 1958 you spent several days in Moscow and played many blitz
games against our chessplayers? I was one of your partners.”
“Of course, I remember,”
Fischer replied.
“And the result?” Vasyukov
asked.
“Why only the result?”
Fischer responded. “I remember the games. One was French.”
And he rattled off all the moves!
There is nothing discreditable to Fischer
in the above. Far from it, in fact. Yet the conversation between
Vasyukov and Fischer does not ring true. Fischer would almost certainly
have answered the question about his results, and Taimanov does
not choose to fill in the blank. The logical supposition is that
Bobby scored very well in blitz back in 1958.
At Mar del Plata 1960, Fischer and Boris
Spassky buried the other competitors under the Argentine pampas
by sharing first prize with the score of 13 ½ - 1 ½.
Spassky wrote a report on the tournament. “Bobby is capable
of playing chess at any time of the day or night,” he or a
Soviet editor wrote. “He can often be seen playing lightning
games after a fatiguing evening session of adjournment play. The
US Champion plays lightning games with pleasure and, indeed, with
a gusto. The only thing that displeases him in chess is –
losing. In such cases the pieces are instantly set up again, for
a revenge. Failure to take revenge noticeably upsets Fischer. He
responds to moves hurriedly and, in an effort to calm himself, keeps
repeating that he has an easily won position.” Spassky also
supposedly put in a plug for Soviet chess literature by claiming
that Bobby immersed himself in the stuff. “On one occasion,”
it is claimed, “he noticed a bulletin of the latest USSR Championship.
This brought a glint to his eyes, and he exclaimed, ‘That’s
just what I need!’ He asked permission to take the bulletin
and immediately vanished. Fischer is one of the most diligent readers
of our chess magazines. He always follows which of his games are
published in our press.”
Nothing in the above is implausible. What
stretches credulity is that Spassky wrote much of it. The tone is
not his. The snide reference to Fischer’s reaction to losing
(without ever claiming that he actually lost many blitz games in
Mar del Plata) does not sound like Spassky. Moreover, expending
lots of words about Bobby’s regard for Soviet publications
is definitely not Spassky.
Here is how Yugoslav journalist Dmitrije
Bjelica portrayed a blitz encounter between Tal and Fischer at the
1960 Leipzig Olympiad, an account that appeared in the Soviet chess
press:
Fischer was in the limelight at the
Olympiad. Tal was late in arriving, and Bobby kept asking when
the world champion was coming.
“Maybe Tal doesn’t want
to play me? He scored four wins against me in the Candidates’
Tournament and is now afraid of a revenge!”
But Tal did come. And although he was
tired after his journey he couldn’t refuse Fischer a few
lightning games. They played five games, and Tal won 4:1.
But Bobby, contrary to his custom,
didn’t get angry because Tal promptly crushed Najdorf too,
who had very much angered Bobby.
This is what happened. Najdorf had
asked Fischer for an autograph. Bobby had agreed, but –
for one dollar. This had offended Najdorf.
Then came their game in the Olympiad.
Bobby had an easily won game but made a mistake, and Najdorf was
able to draw. Bobby then swept the pieces off the board in disgust,
and Najdorf merely said:
“You’ll never play in South
America again ....”
The picture that Bjelica paints is a Portrait
of Dorian Bobby. I do not believe that Fischer said, “He [Tal]
scored four wins against me in the Candidates’ Tournament
and is now afraid of a revenge!” There is the unEnglish “a”
in front of “revenge,” and there is the stilted diction
of Bobby dully, mechanically reciting that Tal beat him four-zip
in the 1959 Candidates’. There is also the claim that Bobby
“swept the pieces off the board” against Najdorf and
usually became angry when dropping blitz games. Spassky made no
such claim when covering Mar del Plata 1960, and Tal would later
aver forcefully, “It is also important to remember that he
[Fischer] was a real chess gentleman during games. He was always
very fair and very correct.”
BUT: the biggest problem with Bjelica’s
account is that it is against the laws of both Newtonian and Einsteinian
physics! Bjelica has Tal and Fischer playing each other directly
after Tal’s arrival at the Leipzig Olympiad, the first round
of which was played on October 17, 1960. Bjelica then claims that
Tal scored 4 - 1 but that Bobby did not become angry because Tal
“promptly” beat Najdorf with whom Fischer was enraged
because of the above mentioned autograph dispute and their game
in the Olympiad. Yet that game was not played until November
4, 1960, more than two weeks after the Fischer-Tal
blitz match!
Did Tal actually beat Fischer 4 - 1? Were
there, perhaps, other speed sessions between the two chess greats
in which Fischer triumphed? Hard to say. But what can be asserted
is that Bjelica’s reporting, which appeared in the Soviet
press, cannot be relied upon.
Bobby Fischer’s first utterly stunning
triumph was Stockholm 1962, the interzonal tournament in which he
scored 17 ½ - 4 ½ to finish 2 ½ points ahead
of a field with four top Soviet grandmasters. Soviet reporting credited
Fischer with a remarkable performance, but there were also the usual
effusions directed against his person.
Efim Lazarev, the biographer of GM Leonid
Stein, tells the following story about a speed session between Fischer
and the Soviet grandmaster the night after the first round at Stockholm:
That evening, after the round, Stein
came to see Geller. Fischer too dropped in. In his halting Russian
he suggested a lightning chess match with Geller. Geller was clearly
in a bad mood that evening [after losing to an unheralded Colombian
IM], but, on hearing the offer, could not restrain a sly grin
and, pointing to Stein, who was sitting modestly in a corner,
said:
“Play him instead.”
Since Fischer had not been present
at the drawing of lots and Stein had not played in the first round,
the American was not acquainted with him. Geller introduced them.
At first Bobby declined to play someone whom he took for a novice,
someone who clearly could not be a worthy opponent at lightning
chess. However, then he agreed to play Mr. Stein but added that
he would not play for nothing .... Bobby proposed a small stake:
10 crowns. To equalize their chances, he offered Mr. Stein a handicap:
if Mr. Stein won even two points in five games, the stake would
be his.
“Very well,” Stein replied.
In less than 10 minutes Fischer had
lost the first game. He lost the second one even faster .... Geller
was laughing so that there were tears in his eyes.
The outcome surprised Fischer so that
he now proposed playing on equal terms.
With much greater respect for the newcomer,
he now began playing less rashly but still failed to secure an
advantage. In the evenings that followed, Bobby often invited
Stein, with whom he had become friendly, to new lightning chess
encounters, in which first one and then the other would emerge
the winner.
The above account by Lazarev, wafts with ichthyological perfume.
First, Bobby would have known the names
of his opponents in the interzonal and would have prepared for games
against every single one, including even those trailing in the caboose
of the tournament table. Secondly, the author has Bobby addressing
GM Stein as Mr. Stein, and the idea that he would not associate
the two names is absurd. Thirdly, everyone is agreed that Bobby
read chess literature voluminously with nearly total recall, and
Stein’s picture had appeared in numerous magazines by 1962.
Fourthly, after supposedly losing a speed match to Stein, the author
still has Bobby regarding him as a “newcomer” rather
than the strong grandmaster whom Bobby surely recognized from the
very beginning or, at the very latest, after the first game between
them. Finally, the author speaks of further chess encounters during
succeeding evenings, claiming that “first one and then the
other would emerge the winner.” This last phrase is meaningless,
and we have no idea what the real balance of the results might have
been.
After 1962, Soviet reporting on Fischer’s
speed play falls off. There is mention of an offhand game between
Fischer and Stein at Havana 1966, but not much more than that. Perhaps,
the common sense conclusions – which ought to be the conventional
wisdom – are the following: 1. Earlier Soviet reporting exaggerated
Fischer’s problems in speed play as a ploy to imply that he
was not a chess genius nonpareil; 2. By the mid-1960s (as suggested
by the testimony of Jack Collins, Frank Brady and others), Fischer
had become utterly formidable in five-minute chess; and 3. The Soviets
stopped writing on Fischer’s speed play because horror stories
about Bobby rolling Soviet grandmasters were unwelcome in the pages
of 64 and Shakhmaty.
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